holy crap it's been over a year since I've written something!

First the obligatory mea culpas-I needed the sleep, I went to Minneapolis for my former housemate's wedding, and then I went to Hawaii. Right, the last one elicits no sympathy for me, I know. However, I did manage to snag quite a few great spices and some Alaea red sea salt; which is important because I plan on trying to make kalua style roast pork at some point. And will of course, post the recipe for the 5 people that still read this blog :) But this post is about what I made yesterday! Leslie has been adding eggs back in to her diet, so I thought we should celebrate with homemade marshmallow cream and whoopie pie!! Babycakes Covers the Classics has a chocolate whoopie pie recipe and this was the time to break it out! The cookbook suggests ricemellow creme, which is fantastic substitute for marshmallow creme if you can have soy. Alas, we can not, so adding eggs back into her diet is certainly a reason to celebrate :) There is also a new spice shop Savory that opened up near my work-they have everything from wood smoked salt to grains of paradise! They also have a fantastic baking aisle that had the black cocoa powder! I couldn't wait to try it. I did change the recipe up a little bit-I have always been taught to bloom cocoa, so I added in some hot coffee (cause who doesn't love chocolate and coffee, eh?)and changed up the flour quantities as well as some of the process. And I'm not posting a marshmallow creme recipe, because it basically is an Italian meringue with corn syrup for fluffiness and I use Wayne Harley Brachman's off the Food Network's website at any rate. If you can't do eggs or sugar, the Babycakes cookbook also has an agave nectar vegan frosting that is to die for and tastes spectacular in these as well.

This is also shared with Slightly Indulgent Tuesday

Whoopie Pie
1 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill AP gf baking flour
 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (when using the black onyx cocoa use 1/4 cup of it, and 1/4 cup of standard cocoa)
 1/4 cup potato starch
 1/4 cup tapioca starch
 1/2 cup HOT coffee (or water. or other liquid to bloom the cocoa)
 1/4 cup arrowroot
 1 teaspoon baking soda
 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
 1 teaspoon salt
 1 cup melted coconut oil (I use spectrum, babycakes uses omega nutrition)
 2/3 cup agave nectar
 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, warmed
 2 tablespoons vanilla extract

 Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
 In a medium bowl whisk all the dry ingredients EXCEPT THE COCOA and set aside.

 In a medium bowl whisk the cocoa(s) with the hot coffee til all is smooth & smelling good. Add the agave nectar and vanilla; whisk to combine. Add in the warmed applesauce (if it is cold, it will start to solidify the coconut oil you've melted, in little chunks. no bueno) and whisk to combine. Add in the melted coconut oil (now babycakes cookbooks use the dry measuring cups for measuring everything-so for this recipe measure out the 1 cup of melted coconut oil in a dry measuring cup)and whisk to combine. Now start adding in the dry ingredients, stirring with a rubber spatula until the mixture forms a smooth dough.

 Drop the dough by the spoonful onto prepared baking sheet (I use a small ice cream scoop, but feel free to use a regular spoon), spacing them about 1 1/2 inches apart. Using the palm of your hand, gently flatten each pie to help it spread.
Bake for 7 minutes, then rotate the pan and continue baking til the pies are firm to the touch and toothpick comes clean, about 7 minutes more. Cool for 15 minutes on baking sheet on cooling rack.
 Spread filling of your choice in the middle and let the happiness begin :)
Makes 18 whoopie pies.

season of spice!

I hadn't thought I was quite so busy this summer, however the fact that I haven't posted any of my efforts since May is proof enough that I haven't been paying attention to my poor neglected blog. Well, here I am today, begging pardons and posting a yummy spiced muffin recipe from the latest addition to my bookshelf. Kim Boyce wrote this amazing cookbook dedicated to whole grains! Good to the Grain focuses on cooking with oat, amaranth, teff, quinoa, and kamut!(there are other grains that you may or may not be able to eat as a gluten free peep.) Now most of her recipes in some way feature whole wheat flour, in among the other grains in combinations. Obviously, I had many experiments in figuring out how to make something completely gluten free as well as healthy. Now why recommend this cookbook if not all gf? Because of the research! How she shows the techniques and the behaviors of these grains that most people are not familiar with is outstanding. I had to buy it. And promptly made the spice muffins, because, hello fall! I did alter the recipe for Leslie, so it is inadvertently vegan and sugar free for another friend who is avoiding white sugar. No sugar? No butter? How are these good again, you might wonder, but let me tell you they are fabulous! My two year old niece had two before we caught her going back for a third. So there you go, Isabella approved gluten, dairy, and sugar free spice muffins!

this is linked to Allergy Friendly Friday

Spice Muffins

Nut Topping:
1 cup walnuts (halves, pieces, etc-they are getting chopped anyway so whatever you have that is handy)
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses (but not blackstrap, Kim says)
1 tablespoon agave nectar
pinch salt

Dry Mix:
1 cup garfava flour (garbanzo&fava bean mix)
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1/3 cup potato starch
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (if you must have more, please adjust for you-I don't like cinnamon front & center in my spice muffins. Kim used 1 Tablespoon)
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves

4 oz or 1/2 cup coconut oil, softened-not completely melted tho!

Wet mix:
1/2 cup almond milk (feel free to sub for what works for you)
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened applesauce, room temp
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses (again no blackstrap)
1/2 cup agave nectar (if you want to use 1 cup of coconut sugar with the dry mix, go right ahead! I was out and had plenty of agave)
1 teaspoon of Enger-G egg replacer, whisked with 1 tablespoon water.

Preheat oven to 350 degreesF. Toast walnuts til golden, 15 min or so. Toasty nut smells will ensue.
Lightly grease the top of your muffin pan-the molasses mixture is messy, you don't want to be chipping that off your pan later. Place muffin liners in your cups. If you normally fall into the anti-muffin liner camp, ignore me and have fun getting these out of your muffin tin. Don't say I didn't warn you.

In bowl of your standing mixer (or large bowl for handheld) whisk dry ingredients together. Add the softened coconut oil and mix on low speed for at least a minute, til the mixture is as coarse as cornmeal.

Meanwhile, make nut topping. Chop toasted walnuts if you didn't have pieces on hand. Stir together the molasses, agave, salt, and walnut pieces in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Whisk all of the wet ingredients together in medium bowl. Small note-if your applesauce is not room temp then your coconut oil will start to solidify when it comes into contact with ice cold applesauce. You will not get the nice tender crumb you were hoping for in that case.

Now that you have cornmeal looking substance in your mixer bowl, start adding the liquids! Pour slowly into the bowl of the mixer and mix on low until just combined. Now increase speed to med/high and mix for 1 minute. Remove bowl from mixer and scrape down the bowl.

Scoop the batter into lined muffin tin. An ice cream scoop is handy for this, but a 1/4 cup measuring cup works too. Or a spoon. You know whatever is clean and works for this. Don't fill the cup to the top. I can hear tiny voices screaming "in the book she does!" but then you get sticky oven floor. if this isn't a problem for you then go ahead and fill them even with the top.

Re-stir the walnut mixture, because all the molasses and agave will have settled. Scoop a small spoon's worth of mixture onto the center of each muffin and press the nuts GENTLY into the batter. You don't want them to fall out across the pan as the muffins rise, but you don't want to deflate your batter. Bake for 25 minutes or so (your oven, etc) til your kitchen smells of spice and the tops are dark brown and the nuts are very caramelized and toasty.

Take pan out of oven CAREFULLY! Molasses burns are not pretty. Let the muffins cool in the pan for about 5-6 minutes; basically until they cool down enough so that you might touch them without risking use of aloe vera later, but still warm enough so that they are not permanently stuck to the muffin tin. Set the muffins on a rack to cool to edible temperature and not burn the roof of your mouth. Kim says these muffins are best eaten day made, but I loved mine the second day-the flavors just seem sharper and even more delicious. Should there happen to be any leftovers, store them in an airtight container til you can finish them off. You know, two hours later. Makes 12 regular sized muffins. (not Texas sized)

all hail the donut goddess!

Erin McKenna, that is. In her new book, Babycakes Covers the Classics she includes a recipe for donuts! Gluten free, vegan donuts. Clearly, I had to buy this for my sister, since she has been bereft of donuts since her diagnosis. I decided to do plain cake donuts with cinnamon sugar topping; she has a chocolate glaze, but I was in the mood for the cinnamonny goodness. The recipe calls for a donut pan; as always, Amazon has quite the selection to cover your donut pan needs, should you need one. However, I had succumbed to the temptation that was mini bundt pans ages ago, and decided those would do quite nicely. I also adjusted the ingredients to suit me- Erin calls for 3/4 cup rice flour; have I mentioned how I am not fond of the flavor of rice flour? So, reduced that(not omitted, because it does add a fine grain to the texture), added other flours and I have to say-these donuts are fabulous! She also gives you substitutions for vegan sugar, agave and even coconut sugar! She points out, correctly, that coconut sugar (palm sugar too, falls victim to this) is hella expensive, and hard to find if you do not live in the vicinity of a Whole Foods or other speciality market. However, I do live near a Whole Foods, so I used coconut sugar in my donuts, but used the vegan sugar for the cinnamon sugar coating. If you are avoiding white sugar altogether, am sure you could use the coconut sugar for both. Then prepare your hot beverage of choice(coffee, tea, cider, etc), sit down and enjoy the hard work of the donut goddess and you, all who make these gluten free delectable treats possible.

submitted to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, of course.
and Allergy Friendly Friday too, for great allergy free recipes.

GF vegan Donuts

1/3 cup melted refined (no smell) coconut oil (Erin steadfastly uses dry ingredient measuring cups for her liquid, so make sure you do as well-or we shall mock you for failing to read directions)
oil of your choice for brushing pans (I actually used spectrum shortening-coconut oil is waaay too expensive in my opinion to be brushing on pans)
1 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup brown rice flour (I like authentic foods)
3/4 cup Bob's Red Mills gf baking mix
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
7 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce (room temp-otherwise it will harden your coconut oil!)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract (Erin used 4 tablespoons, which I didn't have. If you would like to use 4, then reduce the applesauce by 1 and the hot water by 1)
1/2 cup hot water, plus 1 tablespoon of hot water.

Place 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon in a shallow bowl. whisk. set aside.

preheat oven to 325 degreesF. Brush 2 six-mold donut/ mini bundt pans with oil and set aside.
In medium bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients. Add all your wet ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula or use your kitchen aid (I like my kitchen aid mixer, personally) just til the ingredients are combined. Using a tablespoon (yes you want to measure-nothing worse than not getting 12 donuts because you filled your molds overfull), drop 2 1/2 tablespoons of batter into each mold. Using a toothpick, spread the batter around evenly.
Bake for 8 minutes, rotate and continue to bake til donuts are golden brown about another 8 minutes. Oven times vary, etc, so make sure you are checking on these! Don't burn the donuts! Let cool in molds for five minutes, then run a knife carefully around edge and turn out onto cooling racks. Dip in your cinnamon sugar. Eat! Or you know, let cool a little, then eat! makes 12 donuts, if you measured your 2 1/2 tablespoons correctly.

The best laid plans of taco nite

I adore Amy Green's blog, so when she she came out with a cookbook I went right over to Amazon to preorder! Since the happy day that it arrived in my mailbox I have been trying things out and loving every single one, with the possible exception of carob. I feel for people who are avoiding sugar and dairy, and thus inadvertently depriving themselves of a lot of chocolate. Chocolate is proof someone, somewhere loves us. But I digress. Taco Nite! She does a recipe for sweet potato and black bean tacos that I have been dying to try and this was the perfect event! Except I couldn't find my steamer. Hmm. Well, what about parboiling, then roasting? I can do that. And I have black beans in my pantry; I wasn't going to go spend money on canned beans when I can soak beans during day then cook overnight. (yes, if you are new here, OCD is often mentioned in connection with me, however did you guess?) And then I caught some show on the Food Network with Bobby Flay doing a sweet potato taco-where he used some glaze with maple syrup and chipotle. Hmm.... So the resulting tacos were more of a homage to both of these amazing chefs.

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos

3 largish sweet potatoes (approximately 3lbs)
3 cups black beans, cooked with cooking liquid. (I soaked for 8 hours while at work, then cooked slowly in crock pot overnight. Amy used cans of black beans (use 3). you choose!)
1 yellow onion, chopped.
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon Chipotle Tabasco
1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt (but really, salt to taste-this is just a guideline)
1 tablespoon scotch
2 limes, juiced.
4 limes, cut into wedges

Corn Tortillas
Toppings of your choice


Cut the potatoes into bite size pieces. Yeah, a pain, but the more even your pieces, the faster and more evenly your potatoes will cook. Put in a large stockpot and just cover with water and bring to boil. Now, we are parboiling these, so just boil long enough so that they just start to give when pressed, but are not soft enough for a fork to go through! Maybe 5 minutes. Drain and place in a large bowl.
Preheat oven to 425 degreesF.
In a small bowl, whisk the syrup, Tabsaco, scotch and spices together. Now add lime juice to taste- I like lime, you may not, but all that smokey spicy sweetness needs a tart counterpoint so please use the juice of at least one lime. Now pour over the sweet potatoes and toss to coat. Line a rimmed cookie sheet (don't want sweet potatoes escaping onto your oven floor) with aluminium foil (you don't want to clean maple syrup off your pan) and place into your hot oven. Roast potatoes for 25 minutes or so til all is smelling wonderful and there is a little crisp edge to the potatoes. Take them out and let cool slightly. Turn oven down to 200 degreesF and throw in a group of tortillas to warm through.
While the potatoes are roasting, heat oil of your choice (we used safflower) over med/high heat and saute the onion in a large skillet. When the onion is nearly translucent and smelling lovely, add in in 1 cup of the beans. Mash the beans into the onion. You may need to add a little of the cooking liquid (or can liquid) to get it to a nice consistency. Now add in the remaining beans and combine thoroughly. I like the combination of some mashed, some whole; feel free to mash all the beans if you choose. Ok, potatoes done. Beans done. Toss them together in a large bowl. Serve with tortillas, and taco toppings of choice. We followed Amy's suggestion of queso fresco for those who could have dairy, Daiya cheese for those who couldn't, shredded red cabbage, squeeze of fresh lime juice and Amy's great carrot and jicama slaw. Do as you will! served about 8, generously.

flush of success

Replete with coconut milk caramel, I decided that there has got to be more ways to use this luscious milk. Case in point-Whole Foods sends me these little recipe emails and one of them was featured a flan recipe. I thought how serendipitous! I am having taco night and flan will go with that beautifully! Except for the fact that Leslie can't have eggs or dairy. Ok, so sub dairy with coconut milk-check. Eggs? How do you do custard without eggs?? This took a bit more pondering, eating of sugar, then it hit me: agar agar!! It helped set up the lemon bars, so hey I bet it would set the milk. Turns out, I am right, which is always a beautiful thing; as opposed to when I am wrong and have wasted ingredients on something that looks as if evil trolls left it in my kitchen for a cruel prank. The next time I might try using half coconut milk, half hemp or almond; this tasted lovely, but like coconut. So if you think you might want a more neutral flavor to your flan, a mix of milks is the way to go. I used agave in the custard itself, since several of us are trying to lessen the refined sugar we eat. So, you could, conceivably, have panna cottas from this recipe if you can't have any sugar. However, I have not had much success with caramelizing other sugars- anybody have any suggestions for this? If so, please rush your mouse right over to leave a comment!

Submitted to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday and Allergen-Free Friday
Coconut Milk Flan

2 cans of unsweetened coconut milk (Use at least one can for the 'cream', to help with the consistency of the custard. I used the 365 brand)
2 tablespoons agar agar flakes
1 tablespoon triple sec (I thought orange would be nice-feel free to sub vanilla)
1/4 cup of light agave nectar
1 cup sugar

In a heavy saucepan, heat the sugar by itself over med/high heat. DO NOT MOVE THE SUGAR! You want to let it melt and caramelize evenly and if you try to muck about with it now, you will not get smooth, luscious caramel. Now, when you start to see the edges go brown, and brown spots appear in the middle of the white expanse of sugar, take the pan off the heat and swirl like a madwoman. (you can stir like a madwoman with a heat proof spatula, I suppose. But what fun is that?) This will help the rest of the sugar melt and it won't burn to an unrecognizable blob that has to be chipped off your pan. Now you should have a lovely liquid pure caramel-pour it VERY QUICKLY into a 9 x 13 pyrex and try to spread it as much as possible before it starts to harden-which it will! So important to start pouring and spreading AS SOON AS all the sugar has melted. Set aside somewhere warmish-I set mine on the back of my stovetop.
Ok, the milk. Pour the two cans of coconut milk in a heavy saucepan and whisk until the 'cream' has combined back with the more watery looking milk. (I keep my cans in fridge-if you don't, then this may be super quick for you) Now bring the milk to a simmer. Add agave, whisk in completely. Add agar agar. Bring to a boil. Be careful to watch this pot! Boiled over milk just stinks-literally, and it is a waste of money. When it has reached full boil, lift it up off the burner and whisk like a dervish. You will still see little floaty wisps of agar agar. Set the pan back on hot burner and bring to boil again, then immediately turn heat down to med, to let the 'custard' simmer gently until all of the agar agar has dissolved, another 10 minutes or so. Now, pour this still very hot (be careful not to burn yourself)'custard' into your prepared 9 x 13 pyrex. You will hear hiss and pop as the hot liquid hits the sugar-that is normal. Let it cool a bit at roomtemp, then cover with plastic wrap (if you try to do this immediately, it will steam, which you don't want) and refrigerate for 8 hours. This makes a very thin flan, which I prefer- feel free to use a smaller pan for a thicker slice of flan. served 10 with small pieces.

how to become addicted to caramel in 5 easy steps!

One of the things that has been hardest for Leslie is butter and cream. She adores ice cream, sundaes, whipped cream, etc. So I made chai coconut milk ice cream from Amy Green and while it was chilling in the ice box, I had a eureka moment-if I can do ice cream with coconut milk, why can't I do caramel?? The whipped coconut cream turned out pretty darn good. After all, a good caramel sauce is sugar, cream and butter-simple, right? So I decided to experiment, and let me tell you that is step 1 in becoming addicted. The sauce turns out beautifully brown, you could smell that unique almost-but-not-quite burned sugar and pours like a dream over ice cream. I ate several spoonfuls before I ever got any ice cream, and then, of course, when I did get ice cream, drizzling some over is a must! There are, I am sure, a trazillion caramel sauce recipes out there, but Elise Bauer from Simply Recipes does an excellent one and has great pictures! My next step would be to see if I can do this with palm sugar or coconut sugar-we were out of both this weekend. There was a chopped episode on the food network (speaking of addictions)and one of the chefs made a caramel sauce with piloncillo sugar and it was gorgeous dark, nutty brown! So there will be update with the palm sugar, if I can get it to work, but to feed addictions in the meantime, there is dairy free caramel sauce.

this post is linked to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday and Allergy Friendly Friday

Dairy Free Caramel Sauce

1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of coconut cream (from a can that was chilled for at least 24 hours in ice box)
6 tablespoon of Earth Balance (we use the soy free)

Ok get the heaviest saucepan that you own, 2 or 3 quart size. You are going to be heating up sugar, and you don't want it splashing back on you. Take your chilled can of coconut milk and use the pointy end your bottle opener to open two small triangles on the bottom of the can so all of the coconut water can come rushing out. (you can save this for a smoothie or discard, as you wish) Now using your can opener, open the top of the can and scoop out the cream into your measuring cup(or honestly, I eyeballed it, went that looks like 1/2 a cup, and got on with the sugar cooking). Measure out the tablespoons of the Earth Balance into another cup. Now that you have all you need laid out, you can begin; otherwise, trying to measure stuff while your sugar is heating up is a good way to get 2nd degree burns upon your person and even worse-completely burn the sugar to inedibility.
Heat the sugar in the saucepan over med/high heat. DO NOT TOUCH THE SUGAR NOW. Otherwise, your caramel sauce will be grainy; no, just allow the heat to do the job and melt the sugar. When the sugar has started to melt-you will see several small brown patches interspersed within the white sugar, take the pan off the heat and swirl the saucepan like mad woman! Keep hold of the handle and keep the hot sugar inside going in a circular motion. Keep swirling til all of the sugar is that beautiful caramelized brown. Now return pan to the heat and add in the Earth Balance, whisking like a dervish til the Earth balance has melted. Take the pan off the heat again, and slowly whisk in the coconut cream-it WILL foam up and look like it is about to take over your kitchen!(this is why the heaviest pan your own) Never fear, that is why you took it off the heat and why it is important that you whisk CONSTANTLY at this point. Keep whisking til it is smooth and creamy and pours evenly, no lumps! When it has cooled enough to touch, but is still warm enough to pour, go ahead and pour it into whatever jar or tupperware container you keep your caramel in. Or just pour it all right onto your ice cream. Makes about 1 cup of caramel sauce.

How I learned to stop worrying &love the algae

6 months ago, in a happy lemon fog, I told Iris that I would accept her challenge to make her gfree lemon bars vegan! In the midst of a move. Uhuh. We all saw how well I posted on that, mmm? However, the actual process of figuring out how to replace 2 eggs did take a few trys and some quelling of hostile oven takeovers. At first, I thought coconut or almond milk yogurt could work, and wouldn't it be great if they had it in lemon? Sadly, they only had lemon yogurt in soy yogurt. So if you can have soy, mayhap you can play with this, but the plain yogurt dulled the tart lemon that I prefer in my lemon bars. Finally, a eureka moment while I was packing my cookbooks-Veganomicon! This is a great cookbook even if you are not vegan and has been great for someone with Leslie's needs. Surely they have lemon bars, I thought-and they did! They used agar agar to jell the filling-genius! Agar agar is derived from algae and many vegans use it in place of gelatin for jelling and thickening. They also suggested tumeric for color, but I didn't use it, since I was using palm sugar, which is brown-as you can see. They used white sugar, so if you use a whiter sugar or sugar substitute, that would be the way to go. Let me say algae is my new favorite thing and I bow in the direction of Isa Chandra-Moskowitz, murmuring I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy.

submitted to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday and Gluten Free Wednesdays

Gfree, Vegan Lemon Bars

Crust:
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup millet flour
1/4 cup potato starch (you could also use tapioca)
1/4 cup cornstartch (ditto)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/8 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 cup palm sugar (you could also use honey-Zoe did, but I was out of honey, having subsisted on tea for my throat for a good 2 weeks)
1 cup shortening-I like spectrum's palm oil (Zoe used Earth balance spread, if you prefer)
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted (or if you are avoiding coconut, veg oil of your choice)

Whisk all flours, starches, sugar, salt and gums together. Add the shortening and cream into the dry ingriedents- I use my Kitchenaid mixer with a paddle attachment. Add in the coconut oil and continue mixing until it is incorporated and the mixture resembles coarse meal and holds together when pressed. Press into a 9x 13 pan-as you can see I used my trusty Pyrex. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 min til the crust smells great and has browned slightly. Cool completely on wire rack, 30 min or so.

Filling:
1 1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons agar agar
1 1/2 cup palm sugar (you could try 1 cup of honey too)
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 tablespoons softened-not melted-coconut oil.

Fill a heavy saucepan with the water. Add the agar agar and let sit for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, get on with zesting and juicing the lemons! When you have 2/3 cup of juice, add the arrowroot powder, whisking heartily to help distribute the powder evenly and help it to dissolve. After the 15 min for agar agar is up, turn up the heat to med/high and boil for 10 minutes, or until the agar agar is dissolved. Add palm sugar, stir til everything looks caramelesque and smells great. Whisk coconut oil in. Add the arrowroot thickened lemon juice and zest and whisk constantly til thickened, about 5 minutes. Don't let this boil rapidly! A few slow lazy bubbles is what you are aiming for. This will thicken into a very gelatinous substance to pour into your crust. I say pour into crust, but really it is more like you upend your pot over the crust and the filling falls out with a ploomph sound and you spread it evenly over the crust with a spatula. Let cool at room temprature for 20 minutes or so, then stick in your ice box for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Et voila! Lemon bars that look like apricot bars but taste deliciously, tartly of lemon.